Download Yosemite Mac Os X 10.10 Updated

Download Yosemite Mac Os X 10.10

OS X Yosemite review

After months in beta since its unveiling at WWDC 2014 in June, Apple tree released OS X Yosemite in October for Mac users to download and install for free. Nosotros've spent fourth dimension with the new operating arrangement to bring yous our Bone X Yosemite review.

The successor to Os X Mavericks and the 2nd iteration in Apple's current California places naming convention, Yosemite has a new design, new cloud features, an improved Notification centre and new Continuity features that aim to improve the communication between your iOS device and your Mac (only information technology doesn't always work).

Read on to observe out more than about Yosemite'southward new features and whether they're actually whatever skillful in our OS Ten Yosemite review.

Bone Ten Yosemite review: Upgrading & compatibility

Whatever possessor of a sufficiently powerful Mac can upgrade to Yosemite for costless. In order to exercise so, become to Apple tree'south site, and find the Yosemite folio. Hither'southward a straight link. Click the bluish Upgrade Now button. Follow the instructions in the Mac App Store.

Your Mac will need 2GB of RAM to run Yosemite, and 8GB of bachelor storage. You'll also demand to be currently running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard or later, considering you'll need the Mac App Store to download the update.

OS X Yosemite system requirements

Yosemite will run on the post-obit Macs:

iMac (Mid-2007 or afterwards)
MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Tardily 2008), (thirteen-inch, Early on 2009 or afterwards)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later on)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or afterwards)
Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or afterward)
Xserve (Early 2009)

The organization requirements for Yosemite are the aforementioned as those for Os 10 10.9 Mavericks, the current operating organisation for Mac.

OS X Yosemite review: Blueprint

The starting time thing you'll notice when you download and install Os 10 Yosemite is that it's been significantly redesigned. It's no surprise that the operating system now has a flatter and more minimalist look, with translucency, brighter colours, flatter icons and new typography, all of which are reminiscent of the redesign that was introduced to iOS with iOS seven in 2013.

These new aesthetics likely stalk from Apple's design guru Jony Ive's expanded role at the company, which means he's at present working closely with Apple tree'due south senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi on Os X.

Buttons have been tweaked, menu bars accept been simplified and there's a new Dark Mode choice that offers darker menu bars, ideal for working in dark environments or if you simply adopt the look of the Night Manner.

Bone 10 Yosemite review: Notification Center

We dearest the new Notification Centre in Os X Yosemite, which has been significantly improved upon since OS X Mavericks. Now, instead of sliding the entirety of the content being displayed on your Mac off to the left to brandish the Notification Centre, information technology simply slides over the superlative of the content on the right side of the screen which is much more than fashionable and subtle.

You'll now run into 'Today' and 'Notifications' rather than but 'Notifications' like y'all used to see in Mavericks. In the Today tab, you'll see an overview of what'south happening in the twenty-four hour period ahead, including Calendar appointments, the weather condition and more.

If you lot click the 'Edit' push correct at the bottom of the Notification Center, you'll be able to add together widgets including the calculator, quick admission to social channels and third-party widgets that depend on the apps you've got installed on your Mac. Expect more widgets to appear equally developers proceed to create them.

We think that Notification Heart will soon supercede the Dashboard, a characteristic that was introduced to Bone X in 2005 when Tiger was released. For now, Dashboard remains, offering access to like widgets equally those institute in the Notification Centre.

OS X Yosemite review: Spotlight

Spotlight is another feature that came to the Mac with OS X Tiger, and has been a real boon to Mac users ever since. Now, in Yosemite, it's more useful than always, assuasive users to not only search for files and applications on their Mac, but also news headlines, maps, the App Shop, iTunes, Wikipedia and Microsoft Bing (not Google, of grade. Microsoft is the lesser of the two evils apparently) for web search.

You lot can perform quick unit of measurement and currency conversions within Spotlight now too, which we've constitute to be immensely useful.

Plus, instead of just typing into a tiny text box in the elevation right corner, Spotlight now appears smack blindside in the centre of your Mac'due south display, which takes a bit of getting used to merely is much more convenient now that a large preview of the results of your search appears too.

Sometimes in Spotlight can be a bit random, though, and it seems similar Apple is using some sort of algorithm to show upwards the results it thinks yous're well-nigh likely to be looking for. If a certificate y'all demand isn't showing in Spotlight at first, you tin can click 'Documents' to run into more for example, so it'due south non limiting the results completely.

OS X Yosemite review: iCloud Drive

Another one of our favourite new features in Yosemite, and one we've found to work really well, is iCloud Drive. It'south Apple tree'due south answer to Dropbox, allowing you to salve and store files including presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images and whatsoever other file smaller than 15GB in iCloud, which are then accessible from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or even PC. It's also attainable via the browser, by visiting iCloud.com and logging in.

In Bone X Yosemite, you can add iCloud Drive folders to the Finder, which we were pleased to see. We also like the ability to shop files from our Mac in iCloud Drive folders and use them in various applications, fifty-fifty if it's not the one that you created it in, on your iOS device.

Correct now, iCloud Bulldoze isn't a way to share documents and files with colleagues or friends (you tin can use Postal service Drop for that), but we suspect that Apple is working to make iCloud Bulldoze even more useful in the future.

You volition only get 5GB of iCloud Drive storage for free, though, which includes space for your documents, photos and backups so it's highly probable that won't be enough. You can pay 79p a calendar month for 20GB of storage, £2.99 for 200GB of storage, £6.99 for 600GB of storage or £xiv.99 per month for 1TB of storage.

Bone Ten Yosemite review: Safari 8

Safari 8 is the new version of Apple's web browser that comes with OS Ten Yosemite. Like the residue of the operating arrangement, it has adopted the new design, and nosotros rather similar it. Information technology's cleaner and clearer, but keeps the features nosotros loved from the previous version of Safari including Reading List, Shared Links (which now includes RSS feeds) and Bookmarks, which y'all tin access past borer the icon adjacent to the back button in the toolbar. Yous also see Frequently Visited sites and Favourites in the Smart Search URL bar.

You'll likewise get a new Tabs view, which shows you previews of all the tabs you have open a bit similar you make it iOS vii and 8's Safari app. Simply tap the icon that looks like two overlapping squares on the correct of the toolbar to run across the Tabs view.

If you use the same Apple tree ID for your iPhone and iPad and take iCloud turned on, you'll meet the tabs yous have open on those devices in Safari on your Mac in the Tab preview also.

Sharing in Safari viii is improved, too. Clicking the Share icon volition show you a list of recent recipients who you can share the webpage with immediately via email. You'll likewise exist able to share via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.

Now, like Spotlight, Safari tin can besides search for more thanks to the aforementioned Smart Search URL bar. It can search Wikipedia, Maps, iTunes and news, simply just like Spotlight it doesn't ever show up the results y'all'd expect it to.

You tin can now use Safari's Private Browsing mode in a separate tab rather than the whole window/awarding. See likewise: Why use incognito manner: Private way isn't but for porn

Additionally, the DuckDuckGo search engine has now been integrated into Safari, which is committed to non collecting or tracking the personal information of its users. If y'all'd like to use DuckDuckGo within Safari elementary go to Safari > Preferences > Search > DuckDuckGo.

Bone X Yosemite review: Post & Mail Drop

Mail has some keen new features that could evidence to be huge time-savers if used regularly.

The new Markup feature in Mail lets you lot add annotations and images to PDFs from within the Mail app, but we actually found it to exist fiddly and temperamental during our testing. Sometimes, trying to become Markup to actually work took so long that we may as well have edited the image or PDF in Preview and then reattached it, which pretty much defeats the whole purpose of using it.

If yous do actually manage to go Markup to work, an icon will appear in the top left of the preview of the PDF or prototype you've been sent, which you'll and so be able to click to select Markup and use the tools offered by the feature. These tools include a signature tool that works with the trackpad on your MacBook or by using the camera to capture an image of your signature from a piece of paper, neither of which really works very well. You'll also become lines, shapes, text boxes and oral communication bubbles.

A improve new feature in Mail service in Bone X Yosemite is Mail service Drop, which lets y'all upload an zipper larger than 5MB to iCloud when yous attempt to send it via email, which will and so exist automatically downloaded by the recipient of that email. You won't even notice it'due south happening (well, unless you're on a bit of a slow internet connection equally it tin can take quite a while to download the large files for you).

The grab, however, is that the recipient must be running Bone 10 Yosemite on their Mac and must be using the Mail app, which narrows down its usefulness dramatically. That said, if you employ Mail Drop to transport an attachment to someone who doesn't use Yosemite, they'll receive a download link for the file instead, which can sometimes still be quicker (at least at your end) than services similar Dropbox.

OS Ten Yosemite review: Continuity

Here's where our praise of OS Ten Yosemite begins to falter. Continuity was i of the features in the new operating organization that nosotros were almost excited about. It should hateful that the iPhone, iPad and Mac tin communicate in ways that they never have been able to before, making life much easier and more efficient for anyone with multiple Apple tree products.

There are various elements that make up Continuity: AirDrop now works between the Mac and iOS devices (previously it only worked from iOS device to iOS device and Mac to Mac) and Handoff.

When Apple offset announced that AirDrop would finally work between iOS and Mac, we were jumping for joy. It's something that has frustrated usa ever since AirDrop was introduced. It's a quick and easy way to transfer files including images and documents between your devices (if you're on the same WiFi network) then tin can come in very handy.

Still, there are several catches to the new AirDrop features in Yosemite. The first is that it doesn't work with all iOS devices or Macs. If you accept a Mac that was purchased subsequently 2012 and an iPhone 5 or later and/or iPad 4 or later, iPad mini 1 or later or a fifth gen iPod touch or afterwards, so in theory, you should be able to apply AirDrop between Bone X and iOS.

Only, we actually had and so much trouble trying to get OS X Yosemite to work that it collection usa round the curve. It did piece of work, eventually, though not particularly reliably, simply the bespeak is that not anybody is going to get to as much endeavour to get information technology stock-still as nosotros did. In fact, if nosotros hadn't been trying information technology for the purpose of this review, nosotros would accept given up on information technology long ago. If yous discover that you're having problem getting AirDrop to piece of work, have a look at our AirDrop troubleshooting guide.

Instead, nosotros'd recommend using the iCloud Drive feature. It'south actually a quicker and easier fashion to copy files to your iPhone than using the currently crappy AirDrop, as you can simply drag and driblet files into the iCloud Bulldoze binder and they'll be attainable on all of your other devices.

AirDrop between iOS and Mac is a step in the correct direction, but right now it's in need of some serious improvements so is a bit of a let down for usa.

Similarly, Handoff is a feature that got us excited when OS Ten Yosemite and iOS viii were starting time unveiled. In theory, it's supposed to let you brainstorm working on something on your iPhone or iPad – say an email or a pages document, for instance – and pick up immediately from where you left off on your Mac, and vice versa. Your devices are supposed to be able to notice that you are approaching and are mid-email, and should prompt you to continue writing the email right abroad. It should even work with Safari, which is quite absurd.

However, just similar with AirDrop our experience with Handoff so far has been far from satisfactory. It seems to work improve from iPhone to Mac than the other mode around, with prompts appearing when we approached our Mac while writing an email in our iCloud account, simply not appearing on the iPhone when nosotros wanted to pick things up there and head out.

One feature in Continuity that does seem to work quite well, however, is the ability to make or take telephone calls from your Mac, and also to be able to choice upward and answer to messages, even if they're not iMessages, right from your Mac likewise. Y'all'll get notifications on both your Mac, iPad and iPhone if you miss a call, which is handy when you exit your telephone in your bag, for example.

Bone X Yosemite review: Verdict

Overall, we actually like Bone X Yosemite, and we remember that many of the new features introduced with the update are a pace in the correct direction, even if they're not quite upward to scratch yet.

We really wish Continuity worked correctly, and it's a shame that those features don't work at all on Macs that are more 2 years sometime, only we're pleased to meet that Apple has at to the lowest degree attempted to introduce them. We'll suspect have to wait for an update to Yosemite, or perchance even for the next version of Bone X 10, before nosotros tin really say that Continuity is a feature that we find useful, which is a real downfall when y'all consider that it should exist one of the flagship features of this OS X update.

However, we dearest the blueprint of OS X Yosemite (though we know not everyone agrees) and improvements to Notification Centre, Mail service, and iCloud have already changed the way we work on our Macs in a very positive mode.

As it's a free upgrade, we'd recommend information technology to all Os X users if your machine is compatible, though we would propose waiting until the OS X 10.10.ane update is available if you're using a MacBook because at that place have been some reports of WiFi problems with the current version that should exist resolved by that update.

If you'd similar a more in-depth wait at the new features and how well they piece of work in Bone X Yosemite, bank check out our sister title Macworld Britain's OS X Yosemite review.